Tuesday, December 6, 2011

After a good four plus years in college, I’ve had enough time to evaluate the whole professor-student dynamic. And after all this time, I’d have to say that I’m walking away with the most sympathy for my instructors, and not my classmates.

A lot of people say that U.S. college students are really, really dumb. And for the most part, I would say that not only are they right, they’re probably underestimating the aggregate stupidity of the American collegiate.

In my generation’s defense, however, I would like to emphasize that it really isn’t our fault that we’re so dim, dull and generally oblivious to the world around us. In fact, there are a litany of factors that have resulted in my cohorts turning into mush-heads, and if you’re an irked teacher anywhere within the higher education system of the U.S., it would behoove you tremendously if you took the following five realities into consideration when mulling why exactly your pupils seem so unapologetically moronic in this day and age.

REASON NUMBER ONE:

We have virtually ZERO understanding of history

While it’s not exactly news that U.S. college students know next to nothing about math and science, the aspect of general education they are most lacking in is a notion of history. Not only does the average college student have a deficient understanding of history, his or her perceptions of history are so terrifyingly off-the-mark that you wonder if the next generation will even be able to tell you the difference between Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler.

The misunderstanding of history is really troubling here, because this means that students not only don’t grasp the importance of charting a timeline of important events, they don’t grasp a basic understanding of things like geography, causation, or even rudimentary social systems, like politics and economics. You may be thinking to yourself, “yeah, well, so what if kids don’t know who Oliver Cromwell is, or why the Council of Nicaea happened,” the same way a pissed off eighth grader rationalizes a misunderstanding of algebra under the assumption that he or she will never use it as daily event. Granted, very few of us will have to answer questions about the Battle of Verdun on a job application, but the fundamental skills you need to truly grasp historical events are absolute prerequisites for success in ANY of today’s job markets. History requires students to understand causal relationships, and how things are correlated, and how things have influence way beyond their original occurrence. It requires you to understand logic, and ideologies like religion, philosophy and sociological movements - i.e., political beliefs and how technology changes human existence. It requires you to understand human beings, and their motives, and why the believe what they believe, and act the way they act. . .not to mention that it explains the importance of time and place, two constantly changing variables that shape absolutely everything on this planet.

So what happens when you have students that think “Hiroshima” happened in the 1970s and World War I was fought to save the Jews from extermination? And don’t laugh too hard, because I’ve heard students in senior level classes say both of these before.

Well, you end up with a population that doesn’t know the first thing about geography, other people’s perspectives, or even a fundamental understanding of who they are or where they came from. But most troubling of all is that you end up with a population with no appreciation for the factual - meaning that most students either don’t care that what actually happened happened, OR they are content in accepting that what they believe IS what happened, whether or not such ACTUALLY happened.

In other words? You end up with an entire generation that has no earthly idea what “reality” actually entails. And when that is the backbone of your general worldview, it really shouldn’t come as a surprise to find out that we’re generally deficient in just about every other educational category, too.

REASON NUMBER TWO:

We don’t grasp the importance of globalization

My university passed this sweeping initiative a few years ago, with the intent of turning the college into a bastion for worldwide learners. Fundamentally, it was an attempt to get all of us dumb ass American kids to understand that the world doesn’t consist solely of the United States, and that ultimately, we’ll probably end up working for some non-American entity before our careers are over.

Globalization is an undisputed reality, but since we don’t know what the hell reality is, we simply think that things will remain consistent and dependable throughout our lifetimes. Generally, students think that their town is the nexus of civilization, and think that they will never have to travel more than thirty miles in one direction from where they are now to make a living. And although technology is the greatest indicator of globalization out there, we STILL aren’t able to connect the dots on the big picture before us.

The modern college student has no clue how personal finances work, let alone the unfathomably large domain of international economics. We can’t name our own mayor, so understanding how international trade, policies and regulation affects domestic affairs goes out the window, too. Instead of becoming holistic thinkers, we’ve become even more reductionistic than the generation before us - simply put, we’re so unprepared for entering a global market that we’re akin to blind, deaf and drunken zebras waltzing into a cave of starving lions.

There’s this thing called “listener bias,” a concept you should be quite familiar with, because we all do it. In college, students go into a course unwilling to change their perspectives on life, no matter what evidence is presented to them. Essentially, this is why U.S. students suck at science and history - they want to believe what they already believe, so instead of actually soaking up the information (and by association, the skills therein) in class, they just sort of let the info float over them, perhaps retaining just enough to make a 70 on the next exam.

As a paradigm shift in pretty much everything we know about the world, we aren’t perceptive to globalization claims, for that specific reason. We don’t want to let go of our notions of national identity, nor do we want to reconfigure our ideas about how industry and society operate. In effect, we’re ignoring reality as a means of maintaining our CONCEPTUALIZED notions of reality - meaning that, as a general population, we’re more than happy not addressing the elephant that’s rampaging throughout our own living room.

REASON NUMBER THREE:

We DON’T have liability for our own actions

As a culture, my cohorts are devoid of personal responsibility, regarding pretty much everything. No matter what we do, there’s always some sort of convenient excuse around to exonerate ourselves from wrongdoing. If we can’t sit down long enough to study for a test, well, we failed because we have attention deficit disorder, not because we didn’t take any notes and only showed up for a quarter of the class lectures. If we turn in a crappy exam paper, we fail not because our diction is horrible, our logic inconsistent and our apparent knowledge of the subject is virtually nonexistent, but because of cultural biases. I mean, standard English really isn’t spoken in a majority of U.S. households, so why should we expect students to know or care about things like grammar, punctuation or proper capitalization? Hell, if you think kids today speak English horrifically, I assure you that their written skills are perhaps four times as atrocious.

We’ve turned biology and sociology not into required subjects, but our “get-out-of-jail” free cards. Now, I’m not saying that behavioral disorders and social prejudices don’t exist, but I am saying that many students like to exaggerate - or in some instances, even fabricate - such issues as a reason for their academic failings. And because professors and administrators don’t want to step on any toes of a special interest variety by simply calling students out on their bullshit, more times than not, students with extremely lacking knowledge of subjects are given passing grades.

As Generation Debt, we really don’t have an economic impetus to take responsibility for our academic actions, because thanks to credit cards and predatory student loans, we feel - and in some aspects, sort of have - an unlimited pool of money to dip into, so no matter how many times we fail, we can just keep chunking money we don’t actually have at the registrar until the federales show up at our doorsteps. The thing is, we don’t necessarily grasp the idea that those same people that are lending us money kind of expect us to, you know, pay them back someday, and nothing short of a repo van driving through our dens can get us to accept such as factual.

REASON NUMBER FOUR:

We are COMPLETELY dependent on grade welfare to graduate

Not only are modern college students reliantupon a grading curve to pass their classes, it’s something they pretty much expect going into the course.

Last semester, I took a course in which the median exam score was a 68. Now, it sounds pretty damning to note that the average student in the class ranked just mildly above failing. . .that is, until you realize it means HALF the class did even worse than that. As a result of the academic bottom feeders (typically, the afore-mentioned students that have no qualms about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit to perennially suck it up on their fifth attempt at ENGL 1101), the mediocre-at-best-students are often elevated to passing status, simply because half the class is filled with people that just don’t give a rat’s ass about how they perform. Although grade inflation is one of those things that’s supposedly frowned upon in higher education, pretty much EVERY college in the country allows it, simply because the only thing worse than too many students graduating is too many students failing and clogging the arteries of the registrar for another half decade or so. As a result, most D students are guaranteed C averages, which is just enough to earn a diploma, even though it’s glaringly apparent that they have no understanding of what they’re studying.

You would think that principles of attrition would mean that, by the time you get to senior level courses, only the best and brightest of the discipline would have been filtered into the upper tier classes. Needless to say, I was SHOCKED to find out that a number of my classmates in those same courses were lugging around GPAs that hovered somewhere between a 2.5 and a 3.0 - when you need at least a 3.6 to earn a solid A. During the summer semester, I flipped through the graduation list for my department, and out of the 300 or so on the roll, I think only five or six graduated with GPAs high enough to earn honors recognition. For those of you good at math (and since we’re college students, we aren’t), that means a measly three percent of the class walked out of college with an A average. All in all, the university graduated more illegal immigrants than it did stand out students within my concentration.

The current grade welfare system celebrates students for being barely average, boosting them up when in all reality, they probably shouldn’t even be in the college to begin with. As mediocre American minds, our only saving grace - and really, the thing we’ll be relying on for the rest of our lives - is the fact that at least half of the people in the college (and by proxy, the national population)are even stupider than we are. If colleges actually gave half a shit about maintaining the country’s brain trust (which, surprise, they don’t), EVERY single college in the U.S. would cut its student body numbers by half - which would, in turn, result in probably half of the remaining student body flunking out of college shortly thereafter, because there wouldn’t be that other half of the bell curve to give them such unwarranted grade point leverage.

REASON NUMBER FIVE:

We think effort is totally optional

Most college students in the U.S. view higher education no differently than the common nightjohn views a prostitute - as long as you have the cash, you think you deserve a little something-something for your costs. Although we won’t come out and say it, deep down, just about everybody in my generation feels as if they should simply receive a college degree because they paid tuition costs. Actually learning something - and most definitely proving that we’ve learned something - is a needless superfluity. I mean, come on, what other product out there doesn’t give you what you want for the cost of your own investment?

U.S. college students see no incentives in actually attending class, or doing the assignments, or trying to, you know, learn shit at school. They really have no idea why they’re being asked to turn in research papers, and most of them could care less how well they do on assignments - that is, if they even do them at all. They feel as if it would just be easier to cheat than show up for classes, and if they get caught (and pretty much all of them do), they just take the class all over again, with the exact same material they had last semester…which means they’ll probably walk out of their re-do with at least a letter grade higher than the first attempt, which is often just enough for them to get by.

The average U.S. student has no interest in an education. The only thing they really care about is getting a diploma, which they think is some golden passkey that will allow them to live like upper-middle class suburbanites for the rest of their lives. Knowledge, or even a basic understanding of key concepts, isn’t necessary for their hypothetical careers - they just need the piece of paper, and magically, they’ll be able to do whatever the hell they want from then on out.

Excellence really isn’t recognized at most U.S. colleges. Yeah, you might get an oh-so-obviously-generated-by-a-template letter of congrats from the President’s secretary, but beyond being able to wear a couple of ropes on Graduation Day, most college kids think there’s nary a reason to care about what they do, let alone attempt to fully grasp the material presented to them.

When you examine college students that excel academically, they’re usually one of two possible varieties of students. They’re either the children of upper-middle-class parents that have some sort of moral reason to excel (they we’re home-schooled, their parents were super-oppressive, they have a crippling emotional disorder which gives them an impetus to excel, etc.) or they’re children of lower-class stature that succeed academically because they know that it’s the only way they’ll be able to escape from poverty. Most of these students are either foreign born or second-generation Americans, although there’s probably a few of your basic vanilla and chocolate flavorings on campus, as well. The commonality there is that they see academic achievement as some sort of means and not just an ends, which is how most college students in the U.S. view their “educational” stints.

You can teach students a lot of things, but you really can’t teach them to give a damn about what they do. No matter how much you try, you can’t convince my generation that things like scheduling or note-taking are really all that important, and when compounded by the above-mentioned deficiencies as a student body, you’re pretty much staring down an incorrigible, terminally ill patient.

Admittedly, the portrait I’ve painted here isn’t a very pretty one, and at times, it does sort of sound like the musings of an incredibly cynical human being. Even so, I stand by my allegations, and if anyone out there can argue to the contrary, I’d love to hear from them.

Is it possible to remedy the academic woes of my generation? Realistically, I would say no, which isn’t that big of a social problem because the turnover in college is so high to begin with. Every five years, you have an entirely new crop of students, with their own strengths and weaknesses, taking over as the new future of this country. As disastrous as the tendencies of one group of students, in five years, pretty much everything their generation stood for is eradicated, and a good ten years down the line, they’re completely forgotten. Technology has gotten so expeditious that, in all sincerity, the modern college diploma is practically obsolete a year after it is awarded, and in technological sectors like computer programming and engineering, most degrees are virtually worthless by the time the next wave of students graduate. The good, I suppose, is that the impact of my generation on the rest of the world is only going to last for a short period of time. The negative, obviously, is that there’s a high likelihood that the next generation will be even more brain dead than mine - essentially indicating that we’re on the fast track to idiocy ad infinitum, much, much sooner than later.

To conclude, I suppose I might as well toss a few pros out to offset the cons I’ve discussed at length here. In many ways, our mental stagnation really is a creation of the times more than it is a biological reality at the current. Obviously, we’re in a major, major transitional period as a global collective, and until some shit gets straightened out (which may or may not happen until after the dookie REALLY hit’s the fan), we’re a culture stuck in this vacuum, just DYING to escape and make the world a better place. Granted, it may take a long, long time (it really wasn’t until after World War II that you can say the last truly great intellectual revolution occurred in the States, mind you) but there’s good reason to believe that when that escape actually happens, we’re probably going to see a neo-enlightenment era that produces some of the most amazing technological, scientific, artistic and social breakthroughs in the history of humanity.

Of course, there’s going to have to be a lot of conditionals in place for that intellectual revolution to happen, though. Looking back on the LAST such revolution in U.S. history, you note something really interesting: the country had a major mental shift because the youth of the nation wanted one to happen. Poor ass farm boys across the nation used their G.I. bill grants to better their own lives, and when they did, not only did they escape from poverty, they also escaped from that cycle of inanity and intellectual encapsulation that drained the brains of oh so many a privileged youth in the first half of the 20th century.

The solution, if one is to be found, is probably no different than it was in 1946. You give the downtrodden - you know, the real majority of the country - an opportunity to succeed, and odds are, they’ll succeed and then some. The contemporary problem - quite obviously - is that while those that want to better their lives and their culture via education are stuck in stagnation, those that have no impetus (but enough money in their pocket) to take advantage of such services gum up the nation’s educational system so that there’s no way in hell the lower dyad gets that chance to pull themselves out of the gutter.

So, with all of that taken into consideration, of course today’s college students are going to be pretty damn stupid. After all, here in the good ol’ U.S. of A, they can afford to be both.

Oh No! Looks like the author touched a nerve & Scott must defend his own stupidity by denying it even exists. While trying to explain away the problem as a matter of the author's limited perception, SCOTT actually provides an excellent illustration of points made in your article concerning the severe lack of accountability exhibited by today's U.S. college graduate.The best and brightest are left in the dust if Ma-Ma & Da-Da can't afford to put Muffy or Buffy through their 4 years of rampant sex, pot smoking & beer guzzling. Think I am exaggerating- a video recently went viral on the internet showing a Utah State University dimwit that cant even solve the following question-"If you're traveling 80 miles per hour, how long does it take you to go 80 miles?" PATHETIC!! Guess what, this IDIOT will get a job over another person with 100 times the intellect JUST because she has a college degree that her parents bought for her. Thanks mom! Thanks Dad! I'm smarter than you because I went to college!It's NOT that I have a chip on my shoulder, but the fact that I've been stuck as a sales manager trying to train these under-motivated dimwits & it gets very frustrating that our corporate policy is structured as such that I am FORCED to choose from this pile of job-hopping, spoon-fed babies. The 3 members of my sales team who were grandfathered in (without college degrees) are the 3 top producers and generate over 70% of our sales. The other 15-18 (depending on who is leaving for a position with more pay & less production requirements THIS month) spoon-feds simply leach off of my 3 top producers in terms of the benefits & pay level that our company provides them. Corporate America has created a very sick & counterproductive system.

Absolutely, I questure the educational failures to our future generations. They are being deterred from Civics and mostly the true organic history of this nation. It is a crime in my mines eye to hear such betrayal of the past to create this fictional century of numbskulls. Rewritten to suit the rich point of illusions they require as curriculum. No value,heritage,struggles,cultural differences, all common denominators of races displayed as study mass for the coarse.

We have hired many recent college graduates over the past few years, as workers quit or retire. Some are excellent and do not fit the mold put forth in the article, but some fit it perfectly. These people usually are not with us long as they think they are entitled to a paycheck without putting forth any effort.

I have to agree, working at a university I see the apathy everyday. I'm too old to be of your generation (39) but young enough that I can say that it was the same way when I was in college 20 years ago and seems to only have gotten worse as technology advances and makes it easier to be lazy. Students are attached to their phones as if by umbilical cord and can't even shut the damn things off long enough to pay attention in class...how in the hell are they going to survive at a job that requires them to, you know, work? Let alone grasp anything beyond what the latest Twitter comment is.

As a young instructor (26) I can see the apathy and disengagement among today's college students at my university. Not everyone is like this, but sadly many seem to be. It has to do with so many factors (technology, low standards, laziness, being first generation college students, current educational policies, the list goes on) Today everyone can get into college. It's all about universities making money, seriously do you think the big guys at these universities actually gives a damn about preparing students for the workforce and for the future? The book Twilight of American Culture brought up an interesting example where professors are sometimes forced to give their students a grade they do not deserve so universities do not loose money. Policies need to change but we also have to realize that this is a new generation and what worked in the past will not work for these students.

Agreed, Kavita--I've been a college instructor for 20 years and have seen things decline even in that amount of time. Students don't care, for precisely the reasons Swift expresses here (nice to see that some students are observing the same things I am!) and colleges only care about their bottom line. No one except the teachers (we lonely lot) and a few standout students still care about actual learning.

"College has become a four-year-vacation interrupted by bouts of cramming and google-plagiarizing." Can't remember where I read that, but it sure rang a bell. Most students at my top-10 public University are only worried about where their next gram of weed is coming from. I know someone who can't study unless he is stoned! Go America...

THANK YOU FOR THIS. I'm actually going to use it in class Wednesday. I'm a writing instructor at a local college & felt like jumping out a window after receiving an email from a student regarding our first essay assignment due Wednesday. She asked if "we have to bring the assignment to class with us." I try to tell my students there are never any dumb questions but seriously? That floored me. I was trolling for an article to bring in and this fits the bill perfectly. Thank you! I also have to say that when I was in college, which was pretty much the same time as Betsy, students were more on the ball. Granted there were your regular dumb-asses, but I'd say there were more kids who knew more and wanted to know more. I'd be lucky if any student could identify Charlie Chaplin, much less differentiate between him and Hitler. And yes, I did have a student believe that WWII began in 1066 while the same student believed WWI ended in 1974. I routinely have "common knowledge" questions for extra credit on my exams. Another kid thought George Jefferson was the first president of the US. Wow. Thanks again for a true and thoughtful piece.

I dont know what college you attended but at my school, NONE of which you said applies to any of us. My school has an excellent nursing program that all the students are trying to get into and the competition to get into universities out here is tough so most of the students here are at the top of their game when it comes to academic performace. But, I find it surprising that you as a college student yourself would be so ignorant to judge and make generalizations about college students as a whole because not ALL college students fit your describtion of what a college student is. And you want to talk about students in other parts of the world well, I dont know any other international student who would gives a crap about history or who knows who Oliver whoever is nohow. They are doing the same thing American college students are doing which is drinking and having a good time. And most the international students who come here THEIR parents pay for their Ivy League or whatever education it is. This is not the 1800s anymore. We live in 2012 and we can all just learn history, learn from it and move on. Period.

Well, he (she? Ivory could go both ways...) does make a point in that in schools where admission is determined by some entry exam or the attendees are otherwise vetted based on knowledge and/or skills, this degredation of capability might be limited or even nonexistent.

As another anecdote, I am currently an undergraduate student in Poland, and will admit half the class prefers parties to classes, and the vast majority of those remaining appear to have no capacity for understanding basic concepts.

Well, that's in economics. I also minor in math, and I can honestly say I will not pass this year. To be fair, for every few hundred math students, those themselves being some of the best in Poland, only a handful is expected to actually pass their first year on their first try. People with PhDs are in my first-year group. Everyone is crazy good here. I suck.

Microeconomics is like a cakewalk compared to mathematical analysis 101...

And another thing I wanted to add was that college is what everyone makes it. Some people are going to be stupid and lazy and not put in the effort but even if that is the case, so what? College is there for people who want to succeed in the real world not for babysitting grown adults who dont want to do nothing. If they want to be stupid and lazy and not put in the time and effort to study and make something out of themselves then thats on them. College doesnt have time to be holding a full grown adult's hand like a little baby teaching them how to do stuff and another thing, partying in college is just a phase and doesnt last forever but once they grow up and mature then the that will stop and they will get a career or whatever so I dont think its fair that you want sit up here and make judgments about people like that.

I'm a high school drop out considered to have a college education and they are in my opinion the stupidest destructive immature minds in america self indulgent hypocritical unoriginal narcissistic moronsIf you could deicide them at best as a organism you would realise they are nothing more than a complex stupidity

This is a brilliant article, but I gotta say, lets not change things at all. Less competition for anybody that knows how to sit down and study during the week, not work MLM and not be a twat in general.

Excellent Blog....I enjoyed reading this and all the comments.However, those who wanted to argue about your opinion should read the constitution...which BTW proves your point. ( It's called FREE SPEECH)

The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion but rather to know itAndre Maurois

What you're saying is true. However, if every basic job requires a degree. Then what do you get? People in college who don't belong trying to get said degree. LMFAO I just did an essay on this topic, the statistics are scary.

College students really do not need to use are brains to function. Simply "veg-out" with TV, videos, games, cell phones, computers, technology does everything!.. Why use one's mind! So what happens when a person does not have to use their brain?The brain dies! College students are basically BRAIN DEAD!

Great article, awful comments for the most part. For those of you who took personal offence to this article, you need to stop assuming that all generalizations are false and unfounded. So not every college is exactly like this???? Really? Wow! Who didn't already fucking know that? The author isn't picking on those of you who take your education seriously. You should just take a look around at some of your fellow classmates once in a while and honestly tell me what you see.

The introductory segment on our lack of history knowledge pretty much sets the table for everything. Sadly, even if people studied the mainstream history books all day from kindergarten through high school they would be about as misguided as people who can't even read. Yeah they would understand the commonly accepted bullshit story, but discovering the true history of humanity requires a lot of digging outside of mainstream. If we actually knew the truth we wouldn't be living in such a backwards toxic society as we do today.

What would be a good alternative for some would perhaps be to attend a vocational or technical institute instead.A place where they can learn a trade through on hands training as opposed to learning something by textbook.If they have apprenticeship programs that might even be just as good or better.This might be a better way to learn for some people.Education and or intelligence isn't based on how well you study for an exam or even how many A's you get on your report card.Or it shouldn't be.

There are I'm sure some really intelligent people out there who are not perfect spellers and not wizards at math, who more than likely need a calculator to add up something more complicated than 2 + 2 equaling 4.A person may be competent and smart at fixing appliances,autos or something else without knowing a damn thing about history,political science or philosophy.He or she might be good at managing a business or establishing one even without having taken asingle class in business administration or management.The list of people who actually made it in business without even having a college degree is actually phenomenal.To give a few examples there is Steven Wozniak co-founder of apple computers who actually was a college dropout.Then there is Richard Branson the billionaire founder of Virgin Air who didn't even go to college or university.He may not even have graduated high school if I remmember correctly.

Intelligence doesn't have to be strictly intellectual.There are some maybe a lot of jobs out there that shouldn't require a college or university degree.I personally think a college degree to be vastly over rated in importance.The reason why so many of us think it important to have one is because society has wrongfullyover inflated it's importance and made it so that you cannot be accepted without it.We need to redefine what we consider education or what constitutes so-called intelligence ifwe are really basing it on how much schooling we have.

What the author mentions in this article resembles the same thing I have read in other comments andarticles so I have no doubt or argument with what is being described here.If anything it even further validates my claim of why we are over inflating the importance of a collegedegree and giving it more of a status then it deserves.Perhaps these lazy brain dead college kids would be better off in a vocational school learning how tobe secretaries,mechanics or plumbers.Learning a trade or skill as opposed to just taking up space and time in a classroom daydreaming about chasing the opposite sex.

College students really do not need to use are brains to function. Simply wakeupnow "veg-out" with TV, videos, games, cell phones, computers, technology does everything!.. Why use one's mind! So what happens when a person does not have to use their brain?The brain dies! College students are basically BRAIN DEAD!

To blame others for what you and your generation is lacking is just that, placing blame and not doing much else. You've identified the problem, why not find the solution to it? Current educational institute's teachings not sufficient enough? Why not try finding another educational source like the library? Friends with extensive knowledge of (insert subject)? Or perhaps the *gasp* the internet? Preach perseverance in overcoming obstacles to achieve, not just to lay blame and expect change.

To blame others for what you and your generation is lacking is just that, placing blame and not doing much else. You've identified the problem, why not find the solution to it? Current educational institute's teachings not sufficient enough? Why not try finding another educational source like the library? Friends with extensive knowledge of (insert subject)? Or perhaps the *gasp* the internet? Preach perseverance in overcoming obstacles to achieve, not just to lay blame and expect change.

Identifying the problem or that a problem exists (arguing with those living in denial of the fact comes with the territory) IS the first step to finding a solution. Funny how so many people here seem to have a nerve that has been struck by the observations of the author and just as he points out, the offended parties attempt to justify, defend or deny the laziness, under-motivation and general stupidity of the average American college spoon-fed student since it is in direct conflict with their own perceptions and in many cases their over-rated self image. You asking for the author to "solve the problem" for them illustrates the fundamental lack of real world problem solving skills that most college students, including yourself, possess today. Get someone else to find the solution for other's apparent ignorance and laziness not the lazy idiots themselves, let's defend those folks and crucify the person who points out the deficiencies to begin with. Here is an example since you seem to need some assistance in problem solving - a person notices strange clunking noises coming from the generator that provides electricity to the college he attends. He then witnesses smoke coming from underneath the generator. Is that person expected to instantly come up with a diagnosis of what may be wrong with the generator OR would he first make note of his observations and seek outside input as to what the problem could be before the whole college goes black (without electricity)??? The author is pointing out a problem that he has observed - the only folks squawking about it are under-motivated, oversensitive, coddled college kids who only see things from their perspective. You know, Corporate America's future leaders...

I am a University student. From my observations, even the best and brightest students view knowledge as a means to attain a better end for themselves. Only a rare professor finds pleasure in the pure reflection of the knowledge taught in the classrooms today. As for our students- "To do little and receive much is the ignoble aspiration of the great majority"-Horace Greeley. This is not a new phenomenon. The real problem has always been and always will be selfishness. You are correct in your accusations but STOP WHINING and DO SOMETHING about it. One day you will have to answer for the effort you made to fix the problems you saw in life. Let's encourage each other to fix things!

High school students need to take more time to evaluate if they are actually suited for higher level learning. I find that a lot of disinterested and poor-performing students at my university are so because they misinterpreted that the natural step was university after high school. Thankfully, most of them drop out eventually.

Government schools are useless. Universal education, like universal salvation, is a cult fantasy with no positive outcomes.Read Albert Jay Nock. Literacy, in your average person, does not make him more knowledgeable - it makes him a more useful wage slave and easier to propagandize.

The current philosophy of herding everyone into college is watering down it's purpose. One should have a reason or goal of participating genuinely in higher education other than merely purchasing a piece of paper for an entitled credential and status.

The whole Catholic indoctrination/priest training system is stupid, and subsidized, and all these 'students' should either be working in a real job or living on the street like the degenerate morons they are. Most of the time you are in school you're being fed PC cult dogma and self-esteem garbage.Fuck America, and fuck Americans. Serves them right, fucking welfare trash.

As a former assistant professor with over 30 years of teaching experience, I would say there is much truth here, however, I think it's ironic that the writing also reflects the "dumbing down" that he is railing against! Very poorly written. And the essay touches on only some of the issues, and not the the more powerful ones.

I recently finished my first year at Roberts Wesleyan College, majoring in Biblical Studies and Communications. I do not think the problems you described are as extreme at my college, but they still are present.

I have only one year of college under my belt, but already came to a similar conclusion: many college students(and professors)lack true knowledge.

I had an Old Testament professor who taught very unbiblical teachings (you may not know much about theology, so sorry if you do not know what I am saying or if it incites controversy). He claimed the serpent was not the devil, that the Sea of Reeds and not the Red Sea(same thing) that Moses crossed, and that Immanuel may not refer to Jesus the Messiah, but to Hezekiah. He even said he was somewhat of a Marcionite (look up Marcion). He subtly implied God created the Big Bang and that homosexuality is not sin (I have many verses that say otherwise if you are interested). This reminded me not to trust the professor/teacher with everything they say, an error many students make.

The common people, or the people at the bottom of the ladder, whether it be at work, a college, or in society in general, seem to be far wiser than the leaders, educators, and elites. Why do I say this?

1. We traded information for indoctrination, as the government forces schools to teach their agenda. Instead of teaching the facts about matters, they give their perceptions of it, with a leftist bias. The "less educated" do not go through as much indoctrination, so they have a more accurate understanding of reality and have more skills about life in general.

This goes with Reason 1 that you described. So many people base what they believe on their perceptions, and I find that so annoying! Students and professors alike do this.

Even the Bible agrees:

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding," (Proverbs 3:5 NIV).

Even if you are not religious, you can still see that we are imperfect, so we must not rely on our own (or others') limited understanding, which is bound to fail us at times (which is why I rely on God).

2. A false sense of knowledge is high up on the academic ladder. The truth is, all of the knowledge colleges possess is foolishness. It either does not apply in real life (and yes, some does), or it is because it is indoctrination:

"Where is the wise person? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" (1 Corinthians 1:20 NIV).

Not that academic knowledge is foolish, but "wisdom of the world" mentioned hear refers to a false sense of knowledge, more related to the "knowledge" colleges teach that you mentioned.

As professors teach false knowledge, students do not get smarter. Professors probably were indoctrinated in a similar way (or purposely believe lies). So it may be a vicious cycle.

3. I'm no racist, but affirmative action has also contributed to dumbing down education. Since a number of blacks and Hispanics do not have the same academic discipline (though some do, and some whites don't) due to how they were raised, our leaders lower the bar to ensure just as many from each race get "good" education. Quality of education a student receives should be based on academic discipline, not their race.

Certainly there are many problems with the modern college education system, and you have made very good points that are certainly true.

If you are interested, there is a guy named "Professor Doom" who regularly writes on current problems with college education, on his blog professorconfess.blogspot.com. If typing that doesn't work, you can Google search "Professor Doom" or "Professor Confess" and that should probably show up.

have to agree, 3rd year business student here and all I can say is I can't believe how many dumb kids made it to college. I am a well rounded student with a good GPA however just talking with some of the other students is embarrassing. They are completely clueless to the real world. Group assignments are a nightmare. Either you end up doing all the work so you get a decent grade or let a fellow student do a last minute report and make you receive a 60%. For shame

I can't get past the poor grammar to read on, but I am willing to bet the poster graduated with a non-STEM degree (probably business) and regrets it. A sales manager... No wonder you're pissed. All things aside either go back to school and major in something more dynamic and useful, or go back to your cubicle and wait for your superior's next command.

I'm a high school drop-out. I was a supervisor at the age of 16, became a manager at the age of 17 and started a business at the age of 18...that was 40 years ago. Since that time, I've been in supervisory, managerial and director positions. I've had the opportunity(?) to work with many college graduates over the years and can say with certainty the article here is fairly accurate. I would guesstimate that the truly educated are the exception and that class has been decreasing, alarmingly, over the last couple of decades. The whole point of going to college now is to improve your chances of making more money….that’s it. Nothing about improving our society or the world in which we live. Youth today seem to be devoid of anything ethical or moral…even from a non-religious perspective. This is painfully evident in how the "fresh out of college" manage today. Youth should never be in a management capacity. Management, in most cases, should be left to those individuals who are seasoned, who know through experience how to manage wisely. There are very few who have inherent ability to lead and usually only the seasoned can ferret those unique youth out who can. While I was one of those rare individuals, I have no desire to be in a management capacity with all of the stupid people that are, or those who are supposed to be just because they went to college. Recently, I had an administrative assistant, who has a college degree, begrudgingly coordinate my onboarding process into a position that pays more than theirs. They were very insistent that since “your only education” had to be verified (It’s been 40 years since I went to high school and I had no evidence that I had attended high school to provide them), making it sound like you cannot be educated since you have no degree. Total bullshit. College teaches you how to learn which is a process that MUST continue when you leave in order to MATURE. Clearly this individual has no clue about this. I felt like telling them that I’m not being hired for what I learned in high school, but for what I learned AFTER high school…a PROCESS that must be performed AFTER being FORMALLY educated. I cannot rest on my laurels as I have no degree. But I can rest, and do, in the knowledge that I know HOW TO LEARN. Unless the youth are taught, and ADHERE to this concept, this country will continue its path to self-destruction through implosion by the uneducated educated…

You make some good points that are observable and your writing is well done. However, it is possible that many of these problems exist due to decline in the education system beginning in Elementary schools. Earlier today a conversation with a physics major made it painfully obvious he does not even understand the basics of how real science is to be conducted. Most of his comments relied on appeals to authority and consensus. Not once did he attempt to substantiate any claims with actual evidence.

He did not seem to lack in actual intellectual capability so much as he seemed ignorant. How does someone interested in science make it into college and become a physics major without understanding science 101? He displays ignorance of concepts I learned in late Elementary education back in the 80's/90's.

He is just one of many examples I've experienced in addition to testimonies from other people experiencing similar scenarios with college students these days. It makes me wonder what kids are actually learning in 5k to grade 12, and how they are qualifying to get into colleges.

I took the time and read the comments and I have to tell you that years age when I was at Ohio State University my Professor of U.S.History required a 40 page paper about a period of U.S.History (our choice) and it would be 50% of our grade. We were on the quarter system so our time was limited to 4 weeks. I have to say that I was a non-traditional student as I had served in the Army for four years before college. When announced the students cried like babies and I laughed. I was finished with the paper in a week. It was about the establishing of Connecticut as a colony by three pastors. I sat with my professor while she read the paper and she put it down and just said thank you. I said for what Dr. Adams? She said that it was a beyond graduate level paper and that it was the finest paper she had ever read. She asked me who taught me how to write that way? I told her my high school required a 60 thesis on four volumes from the same author and her name was Dr. Williams and I thank her every time I had to write. She then gave me the biggest gift. She told me that I could continue to audit her class to learn for the rest of the quarter and next quarter and not to worry about the grade. I had to write one more paper for her class. I wrote on the transfer of power from a colony to statehood by charter. She said the second paper was better than the first. I laughed. Kids today have know idea how to write. They can copy but to think, research and then tie it up in a neat little package , not at all!

The problem is education is nothing more than brainwashing and if you are well brainwashed you get a good paying job. No University is there to open up human potential. That is why most people who become great achievers often dropped out of University. The system is full of non thinking people and it is in these so called places of higher learning Programming that most of the problems of the world are created, think about it just look at the crap MBA just see what a mess this has created.

I dropped out of college when I realized how much bullshit was going on that it made me see the reality of higher education in America. If somebody could go through college, not learn a single thing, and pass because they did the bare minimum of work, what made it any different from high school? What would the value of a degree when you hand it to anybody who just followed the rules, instead of actually learning something and academically contributing?

I voiced my concerns with the college and the response was basically "Just ride it out" and to "Just stick to the guidelines". I attended college to learn, not follow rules like some kind of drone.

Now I get to do my own research and prepare my own papers without dealing with this crap, while also having a head start in work experience compared to my peers.

If only I had went to college outside the US as I had originally planned when I was towards the end of highschool.

About Me

Greetings, Intraweb travelers! My name is Jimbo X (an unusual surname, I know...I think it's Greenlandic) and I'm your kindly proprietor of IIIA. You're probably wondering what the intent of this site is, so that makes two of us. I suppose it's an info-dump for all of the stuff that I find fascinating/irksome about American culture and society, so you'll find a nice jumble of high culture snobbery and low culture sleaze here. It's also a place for me to rant, rave and ramble about all sorts of things that matter and don't matter, so prepare yourself for some heavy-handed bloviating about politics and consumption. Well, that, and lots of stuff about video games and junk food. The things that matter the most obviously.